Robert Hodgins
Provenienza : [Propriété non datée]
- Obert Contemporary, Johannesburg
- Robert Hodgins is well known for the ironic wit with which he recorded the foibles of humanity in his work
- A prolific painter and keen observer, he peopled his paintings, drawings and prints with a range of uniquely human and generally fallible subjects, realised with sensitivity, a characteristic sense of colour and composition, and his personalised humour
- It is widely remarked upon that he became both more prolific and more innovative as he advanced into the final decades of his long life
- He saw the painter’s life as a rare opportunity to live creatively and fully, and his devotion to the craft of it is evident in later work, like this painting from 2001, produced in his last decade, which also saw him exhibit in both Johannesburg and Cape Town
- As with many of his subjects depicting the drama and the banality of human life, this street scene could have been drawn from a television programme, with its staging of a shootout, perhaps between two criminals, perhaps an archetypal ‘cops ’n’ robbers’ scene
- Elsewhere the city is rendered by flat, nondescript surfaces and a flash of bright yellow chevron and bright red pigment for the pavement; around the main protagonists the typically Hodgins-esque fugitive or peripheral characters lurk forever at the edge of the frame, getting out of range or looking on from the margins
- For an artist who often worked with an urban template, whether of businessmen, political figures or socialites in restaurants and offices, and famously painted boxers as characters in his dramas, this noirish scene of urban street crime is thoroughly and entertainingly representative
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